When it’s Broken… Fix it.

I recently sent my third installment of The Kindred series to my last beta reader. I trust this person’s judgment and value her opinion. She called me the other night, probably to prepare me before I received the manuscript in the mail. To be honest, I’m glad she did. There were more than a few things wrong with my story. She was afraid I would either get angry or hate her, or both. She couldn’t be further from the truth.

No one likes to hear they did a less than stellar job. But one of the first lessons I learned about writing was to put your ego in your pocket. No one is criticizing you to make you feel bad. They’re telling you how to make your story a better read. This is exactly what my friend did for me. She pointed out flaws, all of them obvious ones.

It’s embarrassing to be called on something when you knew better in the first place. Yeah well, me and hindsight have never been the best of buds. But, I do learn from my mistakes. Now I have quite a bit of rewriting to do. It’s not the end of times, and it’s not like I’m on a deadline. I have the luxury, for once, of time on my side. I can fix what’s broken, and do it right. All I have to do is shift gears and get my head back into the story. On that note, I’ve got a LOT of work to do.